cliff at the end of the year. the senate will be meeting today. this is the first time we have seen legislative business conducted in the weeks between christmas and new years since 1970. the house come back as well but nothing yet. the other thing to consider here the two key players in all of this president obama and republican house speaker john boehner. as far as we know the two of them have not really been talking. the lines of communication are theoretically open but both of them seem to be standing their ground. one other factor to consider here is something we just heard from the treasury secretary tim geithner telling us we are rapidly approaching the nation's debt ceiling. we could hit it by the end of the year. there are accounting tricks we can use to prevent us from hitting that by the end of the month. it shows you how complicated this is getting. one other factor that was going to become part of the grand bargain if we ever reach grand bargain. right now they could be looking for a stopgap measure.